General Description:In this seminar we will look into some elements of the
philosophical and scientific context which may have influenced Darwin’s thinking
about species and their origins. The hope is that this approach will give us a
better chance of answering such questions as: ‘What were the problems On the
Origin of Species was intended to solve?’ ‘Where did the idea of writing a
treatise on the origin of species come from?’ ‘In what respects is this work
part of an established research program, and in what respects does it strike out
on its own?’ ‘What are Darwin’s views about philosophical concepts such as
explanation, causation, and evidence, and where did they come from?’ ‘What is
his attitude toward functional and teleological explanation?’ ‘What sort of
‘species concept’ does he work with, and to what extent does it break with
traditional notions of species?’ The investigation of these themes in Darwin’s
work will be developmental, moving from his earliest private notebooks on the
questions through to the first edition of On the Origin of Species.